Juvenile Barn Swallow, Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge, Olympia, WA
Here are a couple more images from last weekend’s visit in the Billy Frank Jr. Nisqually Wildlife Refuge near Olympia, Washington. Despite the rain, there was tons of insects, means food in abundance, for all six species in the swallow family that can be found in the Nisqually delta, especially during low tide. However, this juvenile Barn Swallow landed next to me on the reeling of the boardwalk trail that goes across the estuary. It obviously was still hoping to be fed by any of the parents.
The Sigma 150-600 was on camera but the Nikkor 70-200 was available in the backpack as well. I was afraid that the bird would fly away before I had performed a lens change and just stepped back a few feet to get beyond the minimum focal distance of the Sigma, which is slightly below 10 feet (3 m).
For the second photo it really needed the long lens and I even cropped the image a bit. Dead trees or logs, stranded in the mud, are a favorite perch for all kinds of swallows. Our guide Rob told us that the Barn Swallows have their nests most likely underneath the boardwalk we were walking on. There is also a couple of big barns in the sanctuary, left from the time when this was still used as farmland. Farm buildings are preferred places to build nests for this species, hence the name Barn Swallow.